Basket of stuff. | 一籃野

March 06, 2025 くもりの日🌞
Destination: 井の頭公園 Inokashira Park, Mitaka, Tokyo

🌸 Spring was silently emerging with the sakura pink

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Back in February, the first and most important task after arriving in Tokyo was to find a place to live. I stayed in a cheap guesthouse for the first week then moved to my friend’s apartment for another week. During this period, I repeatedly asked myself, what kind of life will I be looking forward to ?

Not long after, I decided to look for a share house near the Inokashira Park because life couldn’t be too bad if there is a nice and big park nearby, I believed. And smoothly, I moved in and settled.

Winter plums blossomed in coldest days of the year and the toughness of this plant has been through many cruel winter with people. Yet, when the pale and soft sakura pink colour appears, it means spring has arrived.

One day on my way to the park, I heard a weird squeaking sound and a silhouette of a bulbul-looking bird appeared on a wood-like plastic fence. As I approached, the bird flew to an inner branch.

By the unpleasant sound it made, I was sure that it was a Brown-eared Bulbul. However, when I looked into my binoculars, the beak was yellow. I was confused.

I kept walking towards the park, until I arrived at the “Bird Sanctuary”(小鳥の森). The sanctuary was quiet as usual, there were a couple of Eastern Spot-Billed Ducks at this small pond when I visited last time. This time, however, the pond was occupied by some Large-billed Crows this time. The way they were enjoying the bath caught my attention, as they were just seemed like huge dogs for a moment.

Arriving at the west side of the park, a large field was divided into many patches by the walking (& cycling) paths. Two Oriental Turtle Doves were foraging on ground, even with a curious and playful Shiba dog nearby. Was it a sense of security, confidence in its agility or simply not thinking anything at all ?

I stood under an early blossoming sakura tree, somehow pink petals kept falling from above even though the wind was not blowing. I spent some time looking and found the culprit behind these falling fresh pink petals.

It was a little brown-grey-coloured bird with a conspicuous yellow beak. Even though the Brown-eared Bulbul was looking for sakura nectar and pollen, the fragile flower petals could not withstand the bird’s eager hunger. And I realized the yellow colour on the bird’s beak was from the sakura pollen.

The pale pink added a layer to the grey and green in the park. The sakura trees in the park were not in full blossom yet, but this silently emerging sight of their beauty comforted me. The monochromatic bare trees were interlacing with the gentle pink. Spring was approaching.